1. Background Field
Embodiments of the subject matter described herein are related generally to view management for annotations in display systems and more specifically to using an image-based layout process for view management.
2. Relevant Background
Augmented Reality (AR) presents the display of digital information registered to real world objects and places. One example of AR is the annotation of images or a video stream of real world buildings and places with textual or pictorial information. An Augmented Reality Browser (ARB) is a type of AR application, in which labels are used to allow end-users to visualize, browse and search digital data in the context of their real world environment. The digital information is displayed on the end-users cellular telephone, smart phone, etc., over the video feed of the real world environment.
In conventional systems, digital information is typically registered based on pure geographical location, usually given as a point of interest (POI) with a corresponding position, e.g., as determined by a Global Positioning System (GPS). Typically, no further scene knowledge, such as a 3D model of the environment, is available to the system. Moreover, even if a 3D model is provided, the error-prone registration of sensor-based tracking typically does not permit an efficient use of the additional scene knowledge. Further, real world environments change dynamically and thus, a previously generated 3D model may not provide an up-to-date representation of the real world. Accordingly, view management techniques that rely on the availability of a precisely registered detailed three-dimensional representation of the environment are not used in current systems.
As no other information is typically available, the placement of iconic or textual information, i.e., labels, to annotate POIs is conventionally performed using a projection of the labels to the display screen, which is determined by the POI's GPS position and the current tracking information for the camera. The result is often a cluttered scene with labels occluding each other and important real-world information. Consequently, the visual quality of conventional systems suffers from the poor placement or representation of labels over a view of the real world provided by a camera.